Corporate Advocacy Program: The best way to manage and repair your business reputation. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Consumers want to see how businesses take care of business. All businesses will get complaints. How those businesses take care of those complaints is what separates good businesses from bad businesses.

BEFORE VISITING THE WILD ANIMAL PARK IN SAN DIEGO, MAKE SURE TO CALL AND VERIFY THEIR OPERATING HOURS, THEY HAVE MISREPRESENTED THEM TWO YEARS IN A ROW ON THEIR OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Read more below

(760) 747-8702

Two years in a row, the San Diego Wild Animal Park has misrepresented their operating hours on their official website.

I joined as a member in early 2009. Before joining as a member, took some time to look at their website, and see operating hours and amenities. Their posted operating hours for the 2009 summertime season were from 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM, and they called it "The Park After Dark". The next step was to look at weather conditions for Escondido in the summertime. It's very hot there, until later in the day, early evening times. Then looked at the sunset charts, to see what time sunset was, and figure out when to go to the Wild Animal Park in San Diego. [continued below]....

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..... After doing all of this, drove out to the Wild Animal Park and paid for my yearly membership.

Around the end of March , was talking to an employee about how great the "Park After Dark" summertime schedule would be with the 9:00 PM closing. The employee informed me that the park closes at 8:00 PM. I told the employee to look on the website, the listed operating hours are for 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM. The employee looked on the website, and confirmed that the operating hours were listed as 9:00 AM - 9:00 PM, and printed out a copy of it too.

Around late April, early May, lo and behold, the operating hours on the website changed from 9:00 PM to 8:00 PM. WOW, they leave the wrong operating hours up for around 4 months of the year, and change them just before the summertime schedule is supposed to start. WHAT A RIPOFF.

Now, 2010, I am a San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park member, and get the Zoo Nooz magazine from the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park, and their summertime operating hours are for 9:00 AM until 8:00 PM for most of the summertime, and at the end of summer, the hours change from 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM. OK, now I know the operating hours.

I go to the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park website in January, and lo and behold, the summertime operating hours for the Wild Animal Park are listed to be from 9:00 AM until 8:00 PM, throughout the entire 2010 summertime season. Huh, that didn't match the hours they reported in their magazine. Then, amazing, around April, the operating hours on the website change from 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM to the hours in the magazine, 9:00 AM - 6:00 Pm for the end of summertime. WHAT A RIPOFF.

Two years in a row, the Wild Animal Park left the incorrect operating hours on the website for months on end. This has to be a bummer for someone who is travelling to San Diego, and hoping to spend some time at the Wild Animal Park. It made me upset the first year, I was looking forward to being in the Wild Animal Park after nightfall, when the animals are more active and you can observe the animal's nighttime behavior. For four months, it was something I had planned on, since they left the incorrect operating hours up. When they did change the operating hours, they didn't mention it, post a correction, or anything, just changed the one digit from 9 to 8. WHAT A RIPOFF.

Before plannning a visit to the Wild Animal park in San Diego, call ahead, and verify their operating hours.

Corporate Advocacy Program: The best way to manage and repair your business reputation. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Consumers want to see how businesses take care of business. All businesses will get complaints. How those businesses take care of those complaints is what separates good businesses from bad businesses.

AUTHOR: Lied To - (United States of America)

Why did the official Wild Animal Park website post the operating hours as being from 9:00AM-8:00PM throughout the entire 2010 summer season?

Then, why did they change the operating hours on the website to say 9:00AM-6:00PM 3-4 months into the year?

They did the same thing last year too.

It seems like that would inconvenience someone who was planning ahead to make a trip to visit the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

They didn't even post a correction notice or anything to acknowledge the fact of their mistake.

Please reply again, and answer my question, not just make a comment that has nothing to do with my complaint. I have included the screenshots again to more clearly show the San Diego Wild Animal park operating hours, as posted on their official website.

AUTHOR: chriszolezzi - (United States of America)

SUBMITTED: Monday, July 05, 2010

POSTED: Monday, July 05, 2010

The operating hours are what they are advertised as. What you might have experienced is that the front gate does not admit guests one hour before closing. This is a common practice for large institutions and amusment parks. When you have a facility that has 100 acres available to the public and typically has over 10,000 guests on grounds during the summer it takes a while to exit all those people at the end of the night. For this reason the gates close before the park closes.

Corporate Advocacy Program: The best way to manage and repair your business reputation. Hiding negative complaints is only a Band-Aid. Consumers want to see how businesses take care of business. All businesses will get complaints. How those businesses take care of those complaints is what separates good businesses from bad businesses.